Provenance

Robert Schuyler Tompkins

active 1949

Explore Selected Works

Dozens of light-skinned men and women gather around clusters of columns and sandstone-colored buildings that line a crimson-red river to our right in this horizontal painting. The center of the painting is dominated by a structure made up of three rows of three columns each, which hold up a flat-topped roof. A similar structure angles into the distance along the left edge of the painting. The columns of these two structures are carved with bands showing people separated by rings of vertical lines. The capitals are carved with stylized leaves. Just beyond the columns to our left, a blocky, rose-pink structure is carved with more people, seated or standing singly or in pairs. More rectangular, parchment-brown buildings extend into the distance along the water’s edge. The people gathered along the riverbank wear robes and tunics in deep blue or black, bright white, or saturated tones of cobalt blue, ruby red, or shell pink. Standing within the columns of the central structure, a crowned, bearded man wearing an emerald-green robe under a scarlet-red cloak gestures to our right, toward the red river. A woman nearby, wearing lapis blue and also crowned, watches with hands flung up as a person pours red liquid from a bucket. Most of the other people look or gesture toward the river, which winds in deep S-curves from the horizon line, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition, through sage-green fields, to the town. A single, white lightning bolt zigzags down from a white cloud in an otherwise navy-blue sky above.
Erastus Salisbury Field, "He Turned Their Waters into Blood", c. 1865/1880, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1964.23.3

"He Turned Their Waters into Blood"

Erastus Salisbury Field · c. 1865/1880 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1964.23.3

Erastus Salisbury Field, Leverett Pond, c. 1860/1880, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1978.80.5

Leverett Pond

Erastus Salisbury Field · c. 1860/1880 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.80.5

American 19th Century, Man Named Hubbard Reading "Boston Atlas", 1843 or after, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1978.80.2

Man Named Hubbard Reading "Boston Atlas"

American 19th Century · 1843 or after · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.80.2

Charles Henry Granger, Muster Day, 1843 or after, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1980.62.32

Muster Day

Charles Henry Granger · 1843 or after · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1980.62.32

Erastus Salisbury Field, The Taj Mahal, c. 1860/1880, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1978.80.3

The Taj Mahal

Erastus Salisbury Field · c. 1860/1880 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.80.3